MM 019: Declutter Your Life, Reduce Stress and Love More!

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I see stacks of unopened mail, coupons I keep and never use, kids artwork from school and lots of, what I like to call, random papers.

Ohhhhhh the random papers.

I cringe.

It’s the same when I walk into the kids bedrooms and I see unfinished bags of goldfish, empty water bottles, unmade beds, legos everywhere and dirty clothes strung across the floor.

I cringe.

Not only do I cringe at the site of clutter, but I feel a huge burden of stress come over me.

When my home and my life feel cluttered… I feel stressed. And do you know what’s worse than a stressed out wife?

Nothing. <–just ask my husband

Unclutter Your Marriage

Maybe you are under the impression that clutter doesn’t effect your marriage, but I can assure you, that any kind of clutter in your life MOST definitely has an effect on your marriage. Not a good effect.

We are making an effort to DECLUTTER our lives in hopes that less clutter will reduce stress and, in turn, enhance our marriage.

This challenge isn’t just about clearing out that junk drawer or taking clothes to Goodwill (although it’s going to be great for that too), we also want you to focus on decluttering your life.

My husband has the hardest time saying “NO” to things. So, in turn, he says “YES” to just about anything and everything. Which leaves him very very busy and, most of the time, he feels like he is being pulled in a million directions.

It’s important to guard your time and your priorities. If you say yes to every extra curricular activity for your kids or yes to every volunteer opportunity…that leaves less time for your marriage. Less time for Jesus. Less time for the important things in life.

Don’t get me wrong, I think volunteering is important and letting your kids play sports (if they want to) is crucial, but create boundaries. You can’t be gone every single night of the week because of too many commitments.

And if you are, this is why you are too tired to care about your spouse.

Where To Start

The best way to tackle this declutter challenge is to take things one small step at a time. Trust me, I get it, when you look around at ALL the things that need to be addressed you get overwhelmed.

Been there. Done that.

In fact, just take a look at my husband’s closet.

Let’s all be thankful that we don’t share a closet otherwise we would have major issues. Oh my goodness, just looking at this picture almost gives me an anxiety attack.

One thing we don’t want you to feel is overwhelmed.

The most important part of this challenge is realizing that you can not declutter your home and your life overnight. By spending a small amount of time each day on this challenge you can have big results at the end.

We want you to take 30 minutes each day and focus on ONE area.

To make it easy we created a Declutter Worksheet that will give you directions on what to focus on each day.Day 1 involves “Making a Plan” because no challenge or project is successful without a plan.

If you are already subscribed to our newsletter or have signed up for a previous challenge we will automatically send the new Declutter Worksheet straight to your email. You don’t need to sign up again.

However, if you have not signed up for our email list then you will need to do so in order to download the FREE Declutter Worksheet. Just go HERE.

Tackle It Now

If you are tired of closets filled with unworn clothes, desks piled high with random useless papers, tupperware drawers stuffed full of containers with no matching lids and not being able to find time to “date your spouse“…then you are going to love this challenge.

The less “stuff” and “junk” we hold on to in our lives will be freeing. Plus, y’all know you can’t take your stuff with you to Heaven , right? Haha!

When I get too caught up in materialistic things, I try and remind myself of that.

We are ready to rid our home and life of the unnecessary things that stress us out so that we can make MORE space for our marriage. You should do the same!

I stumbled across your blog and everything you said, I said “yep that’s me.” Unopened mail, kids artwork, clutter on the kitchen counter, countless piles of paper. LOL I just printed your declutter worksheet too! Some of the things on your worksheet will defiantly take me more then a day to do ( I work 7am-5:30 pm each day) not a lot of window left for other stuff, let alone kiss the husband hello after work. So its ok to take a few days to do one task on your worksheet I hope?!

Omg!!!! I’ve been trying to declutter our house. It comes in waves but when my house is cluttered it gives me an almost panic attack. I’m gonna make my husband list to this. (He has shirts that he hasn’t worn in YEARS). I think he’s a closest hoarder lol.

Ah just the word “declutter” makes me feel better, much less actually doing it. Since our family embraced minimalism, our focus, energy, and general peace of mind of increased tenfold. Less really is so much more!

I’m a packrat. My wife recently started decluttering stuff from the closets. I haven’t looked to see what’s been purged, but I figure if I haven’t missed it by now, it probably wasn’t that important. Thanks for sharing.